


You Can't Disparage

by nimmieamee (orphan_account)



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, M/M, marriage of extreme inconvenience, switched at birth - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 16:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10469598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/nimmieamee
Summary: Fred does what he must to protect his boys. Hermione suggests what she must to protect her daughter. FP is also there.





	

"I did what was best for my family," Fred said. "Archie has to see that. I just wasn't thinking about Jughead. I was thinking about my kid."

And very deliberately _not_ thinking about his former best friend. But that was neither here nor there.

Hermione said, "You really think Archie is your kid."

"What?" said Fred.

In the background, Pop pretended he wasn't eavesdropping. Three Riverdale high football players in the next booth started pounding their table to celebrate some kind pancake-eating contest they were having. Someone changed the song on the jukebox from Del Shannon's _Runaway_ to something that featured a lot more profanity than Fred was normally comfortable with while he was enjoying a romantic breakfast at his favorite retro-comfortable eatery.

"I thought you knew about the switch," Hermione said. "I mean, I thought you were a good man, but I didn't think you were _good_ good."

"What switch?" said Fred. "I _am_ good--"

"Fred," Hermione said, with a grin that was less pleased than it was vaguely horrified and entirely disbelieving. "Come on. Wake up and smell the maple sap. Nobody in Riverdale is really good once they have children--"

" _I_ am!" Fred said. "What switch? What are you talking about?"

Hermione shook her head, like she couldn't believe she had to be the one to tell him this.

"Do you remember when Archie was born?" she said. 

"How could I forget?" Fred said. "It was such a busy time for the hospital. Just about every family was there -- seems like early October's always such a popular time in Riverdale to have babies."

"Well, yes, everyone wants to induce so that we don't have another yearly crop of teens subjected to the Halloween birthday curse," Hermione said. "But that's beside the point. Remember how Mary was when she held Archie for the first time?"

"Sure, she was screaming about how he wasn't her child, but lots of women get post-partum depression," said Fred.

"Fred, he's not her child. He's not yours, either."

"Who are you to say that?" Fred demanded.  

"He's not even a natural redhead, Fred."

"Plenty of fathers dye their boy's hair consistently over a period of fifteen years to make them feel like their mother's son, Hermione."

"No," Hermione said slowly. "No. Outside of Riverdale, fathers do not do that. Fred, did you ever wonder why I insisted on moving out of Riverdale as soon as I was married?"

"You wanted to get away from me."

"Don't flatter yourself," Hermione said. "I didn't want to get pregnant in Riverdale. Babies make this town go crazy. That's why I thought you were in on it."

"In on what?"

Hermione leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper.

"Look at yourself, Fred. You've always been skinny, and unpopular, and pretentious about your morals. Archie's athletic, and vigorous, and earnestly dumb about his."

"My kid is not dumb!" Fred said. "And what are you saying?"

"He's not your kid, Fred," Hermione said. "Archie and Jughead were switched at birth."

-

Jughead picked his way through the rusting, abandoned junk in the yard and let himself into the trailer. 

FP didn't immediately notice. He was examining the ceiling like it was showing him something really wild. Jughead also examined the ceiling. It showed Jughead several stains that were probably the beginning of a serious mold problem. 

"Dad?" he said.

FP turned so fast he fell off the couch. Jughead scrambled to help him up.

"Andrews house was good, I guess," FP said, sounding a little combative. 

"I stayed here the night before last," Jughead pointed out.

FP held up a finger to make some kind of point and then dropped it immediately, like that did odd things to his balance. Jughead arranged him back on the couch.

"We did homework. Then I guess we fell asleep."

FP considered this and after a half-second accepted it. 

"Did you finish the homework?" he said. "You can't fall behind in your classes."

Jughead sat next to him.

"I'm leading in my classes. Are you going to get ready for work?"

FP waved him off. "No. Excuse me. I'm still talking, and I'm your father--"

"Try to be a father who shows up at work."

" _I'm gonna_ ," FP said petulantly, like a man who had more than thirty minutes left to sober up, eat, shower for the first time in five days, and get to the job site. "I just want to check in with you first. Can I do that? Am I allowed to do that? I'm your dad."

"Sure," Jughead said, short about it.

"Thank you," FP said. "Did you eat--" he paused, like he was looking for the word. "--food?"

"What else was I going to eat? Can you get ready for work now?"

"It's now?" FP said, like Jughead was proposing something crazy.

"It's eight-thirty," Jughead pointed out.

FP lurched up.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he said, like Jughead was the one in the wrong. "You're gonna be late to school!"

"I can come in late if you sign a note for me," Jughead said. 

"What kind of rule is that?" FP said. "What, do they not trust you? I'm not signing anything for people who don't trust my damn kid!" 

Jughead let that drop, because he'd already signed it for FP, just like he signed most of his school notices for FP, and just like he used to sign the rent, cable, and water checks in order to make sure everything got paid on time. 

He wasn't even sure what FP's real signature looked like, but then, nobody else in town knew what that looked like either, because usually they just accepted Jughead's.

Now FP was mobile, rooting around the cans and bottles for a shirt he could shrug on. He paused in front of the closet.

"You get to school on time most days, right?" he said. "You're too smart to be missing school."

Jughead rolled his eyes. "Sure," he said. "Yeah."

"Don't get clever," FP said, pulling something out of the closet, looking it over, and discarding it. "What kind of father would I be if I didn't ask--"

"What's that?" Jughead said. He was usually kind of hunched over, which FP thought was fine because Jug _would_ sit like that because Jug was an intellectual, like that statue of the naked French guy tickling his own chin. But now he was sitting straight, anxious, staring down at the thing FP had dropped on the floor.

"Is that--"

"It's not what it looks like," FP said.

"That's Jason Blossom's," Jughead said. He began to stammer, probably too nervous to note what he was even saying. “What are you doing with that? Why do you have it? You have to give it to the police. You weren’t going to get rid of it, were you?” He looked tense and wide-eyed, and not for the first time did FP realize that he was very good at making his son look like that. 

He pivoted. Went to the kitchen, started looking for a drink.

"No," he said, as he searched the cupboard. "Okay? No. I did not. I haven't."

And, because he didn't like to lie to his kid, he added, "Yet."

"Concealing evidence is a crime," Jughead said, voice very careful and even. 

FP considered this and decided it sounded right.

"Okay," he said. "Good point. Smart point. Solid. Very smart."

"I thought you were going straight," said Jughead. "So that we could get Jellybean back, and mom--"

"Oh, like she's so great," FP snapped. "She left you too, didn't she?"

"You're involved in a murder! You have a murdered kid's jacket!"

FP found a beer, finally, and got it open. Then he pointed at the jacket on the floor.

"That's my ticket out of the Serpents. That's what I'm willing to do, for you, which is more than your mother is doing."

Jughead stared at him, mouth open.

"You know, when you were born she was all, 'this doesn't look like the kid I was holding seven minutes ago,'" FP said. "But _me_ , _I_ was like, 'You're right. He looks even better.'"

He took a swig of his beer thoughtfully. "But I'm the one you're giving a hard time to. Typical."

-

FP and Jughead talked. It was the first time in a long time that FP spent a whole day talking to his kid, and he was more or less proud of that. He even tried to ask the right questions, such as: 'are you in any school clubs?' and 'are you taking your vitamins?' and, 'wait, do people still take vitamins?'

Aside from learning that Jughead was on the school paper (which fit, which made him proud, because his kid was _smart_ ), he mostly just got a thousand-yard stare until he explained about the jacket.

"I didn't get the full cut for the drive-in job," he said, finally cracking. "Okay? I was supposed to get another five grand. That's what I owe the gang before I can back out. I’m their leader, but I’ve gotta buy my way out like any other guy. Wouldn’t be a good example if I didn’t. So if I do this one thing for this guy, he'll give it to me the money I need, and I'll give it to them, and then I can get out."

"What does he want you to do that involves Jason Blossom's jacket?" Jughead asked stubbornly, like he was a detective and FP was just a perp. 

"Nothing!" FP said, taken aback. "Nothing big. Just. You know. Frame a guy."

"Frame a guy? Who? Somebody we know?"

"Nobody," FP said. "Some sleaze. Guy sleeping with his wife."

" _Frame a guy_."

"Fred," FP admitted. "Okay? It's Fred. I was thinking maybe I wouldn't do it--"

He was thinking: _is it really so bad to frame somebody for murder if you're probably going to end up again in prison yourself someday anyway, and then, you know, at least you're there_ together _and he can't act like you're just some_ nobody--

"--but then I was thinking maybe I should do it to get out of the Serpents--"

"And do what?" Jughead said, enunciating every word very evenly in that flippant way he had that still managed to convey his absolutely boundless capacity for cold teenage rage. "You won't have a job. Because you'll have framed your employer. My friend's dad."

Put like that, there really wasn't much logic in framing Fred. So FP made up his mind not to do it, and then he didn't have a lot of idea of what _to_ do, and -- worst of all -- when he finally did show up at work Fred was polite and understanding about the one missed day, so now, a week later, FP wasn't sure if he was grateful or resentful.

Both, probably. More the second thing. Jug hadn't been home since he'd discovered the jacket, which meant he was with Fred, which was unfair in a way that made FP itch to drink even more than usual.

The night of the baby shower, he got drunk. Then he came to. Then he made it past the crumpled cans, the discarded bottles, the peeling boards, and the crumbling trailer walls. Presumably into the car at some point. 

When he pushed out of the car, he couldn't remember the details. The point was: he was here. He didn't need to be sober to remember where Fred lived, because when somebody owed you and then _owned_ you, the way Fred did him, they were a pin in your personal map. If you batted away at the weeds and wire in your head, you'd find them pulsing out there somewhere. Fucking you over. But also making you feel bad, just because maybe they'd been your friend once and now you'd started considering framing them for murder.

"He thinks he's so decent," FP said, trying to take the porch steps and mostly failing. He gave up midway and just kind of leaned on them. If he craned his neck, he could see inside. Jughead wasn't in there. FP felt cheated and then he felt victorious. Jughead wasn't _Fred's_ kid.

He lost track of how much time he sat on the steps. Normally he wouldn't care, but today it was a problem. Hermione Lodge showed up. 

"You," she said.

" _You_ ," FP managed back. He was pleased that his 'you' came out harsher. He didn't like her with Fred, because she'd never liked Fred as much as Fred liked her. And he didn't like her with Fred, now that he thought about it, because he figured Fred had given her a hard time about taking her on -- same as he'd done with FP -- but now Fred had accepted her anyway and so she was yet another person who had to be grateful to Fred.

"We're in the same boat," he told her.

"I'm not passed out on someone else's front steps," she said.

"So high and mighty," FP said. He struggled to get up. He achieved maybe 85% success, which was good enough. It got him onto the porch itself.

Then he remembered the other reason he didn't like her: she was Hiram Lodge's wife. 

"You have to go," he told her. He put every bit of Serpent menace into it that he could. "This is between me and Fred."

"I don't have to go anywhere," she said. "Archie showed up at my place today and let everyone in town know you're a Serpent. I could call Sheriff Keller--"

"Who?" 

"Sheriff Keller--"

"No, the other one."

"Archie," Hermione said, exasperated. "You're holding his jacket. Archie Andrews."

Oh. Fred's big red son.

"Go, or you won't like what I do," FP said. Then he pounded on the door. It had suddenly occurred to him that maybe he should get inside. 

When Fred opened the door, he blurted out, "Listen, we have to get rid of this," and shoved the jacket at him.

Fred said, "Does this say--"

Hermione said, "Is that--"

FP said, "Her husband--" and tried to gesture at Hermione, and knocked into the doorframe, "--said he'd deliver the rest with interest. If I framed you."

"The rest?" Fred said, confused. "The rest of what?"

"The drive-in money," FP said.

"What drive-in money?" said Fred.

"We need to get inside," said Hermione. She shoved past FP, knocking his shoulder into Fred's.

"I'm not framing you," FP pointed out. "So -- so technically you owe me."

Fred sighed. 

"I owe you for a lot more than that," he said. "Come on. We'd better talk."

-

Because Fred had taken a week to turn the problem over in his head. He'd called Mary during that week, but she had not been supportive.

"I have literally been telling you for the past fifteen years that that is not my kid," she'd said.

"And I thought you were a very unhelpful co-parent," Fred said in response. "You made Alice Cooper look like the mother of the year."

"Right. Because that is not my kid."

But he was Fred's kid. Goodhearted. Beloved. _Fred's_. 

But then maybe the other kid, the quiet, lanky, twitchy one he'd always had a soft spot for -- 

Maybe that was Fred's kid, too.

So Fred had gone to take a look at the hospital records. He saw the problem right away: they'd obviously taken home the wrong child. But when he asked to see the people responsible, he was put on hold or directed to another office, left in a waiting room or coolly informed that all of 2001's hospital employees were dead now.

" _All_ of them?" he asked incredulously.

"It was a difficult year," the neonatal receptionist noted.

Mayor McCoy said the same thing, over a glass of sherry in her office. She was having the sherry. Fred was having a week-long panic attack.

"I took home the wrong baby!"

"And?" said Mayor McCoy. "It was 2001. We all did things we regret now."

Her daughter came in, caught this statement, and said, "Do you know who was topping the charts in 2001? Train. _Train_."

Mayor McCoy looked at her adoringly.

"Exactly," she said. "Terrible time. I would drop it if I were you, Fred."

And Sheriff Keller, stopping by the house one night, said the same thing.

"Heard you were asking about a baby switch," he said.

"Yes!" Fred said. "Mine! That I would like you to investigate."

"I can't investigate every baby switch that happens in this town," Keller said, shaking his head.

"There are others?"

"It was another time," Keller said dismissively. "2001. I had frosted tips. I would leave it alone, Fred."

So, really, by the time Archie got home with a wild story about bikers and hurt classmates and FP Jones, Fred hadn't been in the best place to hear it.

"Don't you have a baby shower you were going to go to?" he told Archie, interrupting a litany about Jughead and lies and secrets, exactly the kind of litany that had been playing in Fred's head all week and yet still not really something he knew how to handle. 

"Dad," Archie said, staring at him with wide eyes. "I'm asking you what we should do!"

Fred said, "I don't know. Adopt him?"

" _Adopt_ him?"

"Jughead," Fred said. "Oh my god. I need to adopt him."

-

"Absolutely not," FP said. "Also, fuck you."

Then he added, "And I didn't put the snake in the box, and I didn't kill the Blossom kid, and I didn't put people up to stealing from you. There's only so much resale value in the shitty lumber you're using these days."

Then he reached into his shirt and found a flask.

"I did torch the car," he allowed, before taking a swig.

"Should you be drinking more?" Fred said.

"Don't tell me what to do," said FP. Even this drunk, he looked every bit the former football star, sprawled handsomely on Fred's couch, in Fred's house. 

"Fine, FP," Fred said, not wanting to fight.

He caught Hermione looking at him. It wasn't a look that was remotely fine with giving ground to FP Jones. 

 _That_ was dismally familiar. It occurred to Fred that he'd never actually forgiven FP for being so hard to manage, because on some level he'd always assumed that people -- and specifically Hermione -- had noticed that Fred could barely manage him. And dumped Fred for it. Moved on to the kind of men who could manage the world. Which would be fine, if FP himself hadn't also moved on -- to practically any woman he could get his hands on. 

"Sorry," he told FP. "Maybe you didn't hear me. I don't want you drinking in my house."

FP said, "What do you care if I drink? You're trying to steal my kid. And she's trying to help you. And her husband probably killed somebody!"

"We don't know that Hiram killed anyone," Hermione said immediately. "He might have just happened to know where the car with the jacket was. From prison. Two hundred and fifty seven miles away."

Both Fred and FP looked incredulously at her.

"Okay," she said, "I sometimes wonder if he had Jason killed. But what am I supposed to do? He's my _husband_."

FP looked away, disinterested now, but Fred didn't. 

She had a heart the size of Texas. He knew that. But there were things she boxed up and never let people see, and he thought that maybe her real feelings for Hiram Lodge had always been like that: something she shoved in the box when they weren't convenient. For a second Fred felt younger and dumber, torn between the perfect girl and the big man on campus, unable to really reach either of them.

"Why did you even come over if you're still so in love with your husband?" he asked Hermione, finally. 

Hermione sighed. 

"I got a coded letter from him this afternoon, just before the baby shower was supposed to start. He knows about us, Fred, and if I'm reading this right then he's made some threats--"

"Ha!" FP said. "Told you."

"--which do _not_ exonerate FP from any potential involvement in Jason Blossom's murder," Hermione finished.

"Why would I kill some teenager?" FP said, rolling his eyes. "I didn't."

Fred was inclined to agree with him. He knew FP. FP boxed up nothing. This meant that Fred had depressingly low expectations for him, but also that dealing with FP was like walking into a familiar house in the dark. He couldn't see where he was going, but he more or less knew where everything was and expected few surprises. Murder would have been a surprise.

"So Hiram told you he might be framing me, and now you want to break this off," he said. 

"Yes. But actually Hiram told me the framing thing wasn't going fast enough, so he was going to have you murdered," Hermione said. "You _and_ the boys."

Now FP was paying attention again.

"Boys. More than one boy. As in my boy?"

"As in both boys," Hermione confirmed. "Fred's biological son and Fred's mistake son."

"My kid's not the mistake, though, right?" FP said.

"Archie isn't a mistake!" said Fred. "Okay, he's not great at school, but--"

"You took home the wrong baby," Hermione said.

"I have the answer," FP said, finishing up whatever was in his flask. "I'll just go back to framing him. Then Hiram won't kill Jughead or the other one."

"His name is Archie," Fred said, annoyed. Then FP's words caught up to him and he added, "And hey, you're not framing me!"

"Especially since Hiram's ready to kill you too," Hermione said. "He doesn't like it when people are slow to follow up on their end of a deal."

"He backed out of giving me five grand!" FP said, enraged.

"Yes. That's what he does," Hermione said. "He backs out of deals to make you enter into a new deal, and then he punishes you for not following up on the new deal. That's literally the strategy he described in the bestselling book he wrote three years ago: How To Successfully Back Out of a Deal."

Fred said, "So he's threatening me, and he's threatening FP, and he's threatening the boys--"

"Not to mention Veronica," Hermione said. 

"Why would he target Veronica?" Fred asked, alarmed.

"He made her a Lodge Industries officer and therefore a potential fall guy for the company," Hermione said. "As her mother, I find that ominous. But I have an idea."

She turned to him, as darkly lovely now as she'd been twenty years ago.

"It's crazy," she said. "And I don't like it myself. But I think it could save us all."

-

"Are you sure about this?" Fred asked Hermione.

"No," she said. "I hate this. If I had any other choice, I wouldn't let you go like this."

"Okay, the clerk's office is gonna close in like ten minutes," said FP. "So let's just get it over with. She writes a letter to her husband with a copy of the license as proof. I don't get murdered. You don't get murdered or framed. I get my kid and then I get my other, redder kid. You get your kid and also my better kid--"

"Now, FP, they're both good in their own ways," Fred protested, but FP steamrolled over him.

"You pay five grand--"

"He doesn't have five grand," Hermione snapped. 

"Then he's signing himself up for shit city," FP said, shrugging. "Because you should have seen what they tried to do to Gladys when I didn't show up for new gang-member initiation day, and Gladys and I were never even official like this."

Then he started banging on the clerk's desk to make the clerk hurry up. Fred gently put a hand on his hand to get him to stop. Amazingly, FP didn't shrug him off. This was possibly the first positive, non-violent physical contact he'd had with FP since they were both seventeen, so Fred decided to roll with it.

"I have five grand," he told Hermione. "From the contract we just signed. This means bringing on less guys, maybe, and maybe it means I don't get as much of my own cut--"

"See. It all works," FP said dismissively.

Hermione shook her head. 

"It doesn't. What you're getting is far better than you deserve."

FP looked at her like she was crazy. When the clerk reappeared, he asked, "Who's getting the better end of the deal: him or me?"

"Can we do this now? We're closing in five minutes," said the clerk. "Who's the witness?"

Hermione raised her hand, and somehow managed to communicate that this was the very last thing she wanted to be doing, and also specifically that the first thing she wanted to be doing was punching FP in the teeth.

"It's just like old times," Fred said, sighing. 

"Best times of my life," FP said. "For some reason it all went downhill after that. Never could figure out the reason."

"I have a mirror in my purse if that would help," said Hermione.

-

After the wedding, they had to tell the boys.

"You made Jughead my brother?" Archie said. Not like it was bad news. Just like it was unexpected. 

And Jughead said, “You married Archie's dad?”

Kind of like it was bad news.

Then he said, slowly and deliberately, "Mom's not coming back."

FP gave a nervous grin. 

"Did you want her back?"

"Yes," Jughead said, very quietly. "I told you. I wanted mom and Jellybean to come home, and now you got _married_ \--"

"Just give it a shot," FP said. 

"I'm tired of giving things _a shot._ Marrying Archie's dad isn't a _fad diet--_ "

"You know what?" Hermione whispered to Fred. "I think I'm going to go."

"No," Fred protested. "You don't have to--"

"Noooo,” Hermione said slowly. "I think I will."

-

FP woke Fred up in the middle of the night.

"Fred," he said. "Move over. I think Jughead hates me now, and Artie doesn't like me either."

Fred rolled over and blinked at FP. FP blinked back. His limbs hurt and his mouth was dry and he was starting get cold sweats of some kind. He wanted a drink. The Serpents had burned everything FP owned.

"Ar _chie_ ," Fred said, his voice heavy with sleep.

"Move over," FP said again.

Fred did, but he said, "I thought we said you were sleeping on the couch."

"You're too good to bunk with me now?" FP said, climbing into the bed and immediately claiming 70% of it on the basis that he was in a worse condition that Fred and therefore needed it more.

"I think I'm sober."

"Good," Fred said sleepily. "Let's try to keep you that way."

"Are you trying to kill me?" FP demanded.

Fred turned to look at him blearily.

"Why would I marry you, and then try to kill you?" 

"Why _did_ you marry me?" FP said.

Seen through the cold light of sobriety, it didn't make sense, even when you factored in Hiram. Even FP's kid didn't want to live with him, so why had Fred agreed to? Fred was a together human being. Together at FP's expense, sure, but then who was quibbling?

Fred didn't immediately answer the question. He only spoke after so much time had passed that FP had begun to assume he'd fallen asleep again. 

"Maybe I could have filed for custody of Jughead or something. Not gonna lie to you: I considered it. But then you would have hated me. Again. And I would have hated you again. And I'm really tired of living with that. It's a lot to carry around."

"I get that," FP said.

He did. Resentment was a loser's game, because it kept you remembering the bad things all day, every day, until they chased them away with a drink or maybe forty-seven. FP had failed as a parent and partner, and a lot of that had to do with how hard he had to work at resenting things all the time.

Also, failure just kind of had him in its teeth. Always had, ever since high school. He examined his hands in the weak light coming in from the street and was astonished at how skeletal they looked, and then he got worried about how Jughead's hands might look in twenty years after a lot of hard living, so he lurched out of bed and went to find him.

It was only when he was actually looking down at him that he realized: right, not my natural kid. But how could he ever have guessed that? He'd always assumed that Jughead looked like him. Paler and thinner, sure. But the same hair, the same mouth. The same shape to his eyes. And anyway not being there for Jug somehow felt fine if Jug was his _natural_ kid, but where did that leave FP when his natural kid had been raised into glossy ruddy health by Fred Andrews, and the kid who'd been unlucky enough to end up with FP now didn't even want to talk to him?

After too many minutes of looking at Jughead, FP started to feel like shit in a way that had nothing to do with the aches of his body, so he went downstairs to ransack the kitchen in the hopes of finding a beer. Eventually he found one. He brought it upstairs and shoved Fred over again. 

"I'm glad I didn't frame you," he told Fred. "Okay?"

Silence.

"Fred?"

"Oh my god," Fred said into his pillow.

"I just need you to know that I'm glad I didn't frame you," FP insisted. "You've-- you were _there_ for your kid, or my kid--"

"Thanks," Fred said. "Great. Go to bed."

"--so I really should have turned down the framing job and just gone with the baby-stealing job he offered--"

"What?" Fred said.

-

“It’s really great that we’re brothers,” Archie said sleepily, two rooms away.

“Is it?” said Jughead.

"Don't get judgmental," he heard his dad shout, through the walls. "You married me -- now you've gotta support your man!"

"Did you know they're Riverdale's first official gay marriage?" Archie said. "That's pretty neat."

"Everything to do with our two families is the opposite of neat," Jughead said.

There was silence for a bit.

"Did you know? About them--"

"Having a tangled, twisted, sordid past together?" Jughead said. "I had an inkling."

"No," Archie said. "About their being in love."

"They're not in love," Jughead said.

"Okay," Archie said, sounding a little hurt. "Well, that's your opinion."

**Author's Note:**

> This is nonsense, but I may write more of it, as the mood strikes. 
> 
> Is this all a plot so that Hermione can take over the Serpents? Probably. Probably.


End file.
